One Benefit of a Mixed Orientation Relationship

I've always been taught that when getting married, couples have this initial period of bliss that wears off after a few months or years, and that the let-down can lead to a "falling-out-of-love" period.  However, I don't think I ever experienced that.  I think that it is one of the benefits of my orientation.

Attraction

So, what does it mean to you when you say you are attracted to someone?  What does it mean to be romantic?  I think these things may vary greatly from person to person, so that makes discussion of orientation somewhat problematic.

Logical Fallacies - Confirmation Bias

I remember Gordon B. Hinckley liked to say that if you always look for shadows rather than light, you are likely to find them.  He was pointing out that many critics of the church fall prey to a logical fallacy often called confirmation bias, a kind of fallacy of incomplete evidence.  The idea is that if you believe something is true, you tend to primarily notice evidence for that thing, while missing much of the evidence against it.  Often this happens without the participants even noticing.

Scouting, Part 2

Ezra Taft Benson said, “Give me a young man who has kept himself morally clean and has faithfully attended his Church meetings. Give me a young man who has magnified his priesthood and has earned the Duty to God Award and is an Eagle Scout. Give me a young man who is a seminary graduate and has a burning testimony of the Book of Mormon. Give me such a young man, and I will give you a young man who can perform miracles for the Lord in the mission field and throughout his life."

I can't tell you how often I have heard this quote in many different settings.  I understand the value of helping young men grow up to be great missionaries.  And I agree that a young man who had all these qualities would probably make a great missionary.  But it always hurt a little bit.  Having only achieved the rank of star, it tended to make me feel like I was not an acceptable member of the church and an unprepared missionary.

Scouting, Part 1

I was not a very good boy scout.  I grew up in a family where camping, fishing, hunting was just part of family life, but I wasn't particularly excited about it, nor was I against it.  Camping with the scouts was, therefore, nothing special.  Being severely ADHD, which was not even something people knew about back then, meant that I had a very difficult time completing merit badges and the like.  So while I enjoyed my time in scouts, I was not very successful by the normal measures of awards and badges.

Skeptical

One thing that I know sometimes bothers my wife is how much of a skeptic I am.  My first reaction to any new idea or information is skepticism.  I immediately refute it, look for facts that give me cause to disbelieve.  I have been trained in an academic discipline in which negative questioning and searching for counterexamples is held in high regard.  However, if you give me time, new information and ideas do eventually change and shape my worldview.

Faith, Hope, Charity

What does it mean to have faith?  The first principle of the gospel is not just faith, but faith in Jesus Christ.  That's a little more specific, but what exactly does that mean?

Steady

When I was a graduate student, I noticed something that I thought was odd.  People my age were not dating.  They would hang out with large groups, only pairing off occasionally for a brief fling.  I eventually learned that most of these people had been in and out of "steady" relationships since junior high or earlier, and they were tired of the drama.  That just seemed sad to me.

Not the Only Option

Take a young Mormon with a budding testimony.  Suppose they have a gay orientation.  Now include the belief that he (or she) will never be able to serve a mission, get married in the temple, or even stay a member of the church if they are gay.  What is likely to happen?  All too often the reaction is to hide, to deny one's own emotions, bottle it all up, suppress the passions.  It's like trying to completely stop up a river.  Eventually the water will overwhelm any barrier.  Then, in the flood of reaction, the church may be rejected along with the emotional baggage.

Chastity

In one of my favorite webcomics, the chaplain in a mercenary army explains that his religious order doesn't believe in celibacy, but rather chastity.  So basically, no sex outside of marriage.  Seem a bit strict?  I've had friends express that expecting teens to abstain from sex is extremely naive.  They figure that the only celibate teens are those that can't attract the opposite sex.  My experience has been quite different.

Smokescreen

A smokescreen is a kind of distraction to keep people from seeing clearly.  It bothers me when I see people purposefully confusing or distracting from the truth in order to argue a point.  That's one of the reasons that I post about logical fallacies so much.

Community

There have been a lot of good things this blog has done for me.  I've been able to write my thoughts and organize my thinking a little.  I've been able to focus on an aspect of myself that has had little time to grow or develop in a healthy way.  But one thing it hasn't been able to do is give me a sense of connection, a sense of belonging to a community.